CRM & Marketing Glossary
Plain-English definitions of the terms you'll meet while choosing and using a CRM — no jargon required to read about jargon.
A
- A2P 10DLC
- Application-to-Person 10-Digit Long Code — the US carrier registration system for businesses sending text messages from standard phone numbers. Registering your brand and campaigns is required for reliable SMS delivery and avoids carrier filtering.
- All-in-One Platform
- Software that combines CRM, email, SMS, funnels, booking, payments, and reputation tools in one system — replacing a stack of separate subscriptions and the integrations needed to connect them.
- API (Application Programming Interface)
- The connection layer that lets two software systems talk to each other — for example, your website passing new leads directly into your CRM.
- Appointment Reminder
- An automated text or email sent before a scheduled appointment. Clinical studies show SMS reminders cut no-shows by up to 38%.
- Attribution
- Identifying which marketing channel or campaign caused a lead or sale, so you know where to spend more (and less).
- Automation (Workflow)
- A sequence of actions your CRM performs automatically when something triggers it — e.g., new lead arrives → send text within 60 seconds → notify the owner → add to pipeline.
B
- Booking Page
- A self-serve calendar link where customers pick an available time slot themselves, with confirmations and reminders sent automatically.
C
- CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)
- What it costs in marketing and sales spend to win one new customer. Total spend divided by new customers in the same period.
- Call Tracking
- Using unique phone numbers per channel or campaign so you know which marketing made the phone ring.
- Churn
- The rate at which customers cancel or stop buying over a period. The quiet killer of recurring-revenue businesses.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR)
- The percentage of people who clicked a link in your email, ad, or text out of everyone who saw it.
- Contact Management
- The core CRM function: one organized record per person with their history — calls, texts, emails, jobs, invoices, notes.
- Conversational AI
- AI that handles two-way conversations with customers over chat, SMS, or voice — answering questions, qualifying leads, and booking appointments without a human.
- Conversion Rate
- The percentage of people who took the action you wanted — visitors who became leads, leads who became customers, quotes that became jobs.
- CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
- Software that stores every customer and lead in one place and tracks every interaction with them. Modern small-business CRMs also automate the follow-up that turns leads into booked work.
- CTA (Call to Action)
- The specific next step you ask someone to take — "Book now," "Get a quote," "Schedule a demo." Every page, email, and text should have exactly one.
- Custom Fields
- Data fields you add to contact records for your business's specifics — water heater model, policy renewal date, preferred technician.
D
- Database Reactivation
- A campaign that re-engages old leads and past customers already in your CRM — usually the cheapest revenue available to a small business.
- Deliverability
- Whether your emails actually reach inboxes instead of spam folders. Driven by domain authentication, list hygiene, and engagement.
- Drip Campaign
- A pre-written series of emails or texts delivered automatically on a schedule, keeping leads warm without manual effort.
F
- Funnel
- The path from stranger to customer — e.g., ad → landing page → booking → job. Also: a focused mini-website built for one conversion goal.
L
- Landing Page
- A single page built for one campaign and one action, with the navigation and distractions removed.
- Lead
- A person who has shown interest — called, filled a form, messaged — but hasn't bought yet.
- Lead Capture
- Collecting a prospect's contact information from calls, forms, chats, QR codes, or social messages, automatically, into one system.
- Lead Nurturing
- Staying usefully in touch with leads who aren't ready yet, via automated email/SMS, so you're the obvious choice when they are.
- Lead Scoring
- Ranking leads by how likely they are to buy, based on behavior and fit, so you call the hottest ones first.
- Lifecycle Marketing
- Matching your messaging to where someone is — new lead, active quote, current customer, past customer — instead of blasting everyone the same thing.
- List Segmentation
- Splitting contacts into groups (by service, location, history) so each gets relevant messages. Smaller, sharper lists outperform big blasts.
- LTV (Lifetime Value)
- Total profit a customer generates over the whole relationship. LTV against CAC tells you what you can afford to spend on acquisition.
M
- Missed-Call Text-Back
- Automation that instantly texts anyone whose call went unanswered ("Sorry we missed you — how can we help?"). With 62% of SMB calls going unanswered (411 Locals), it's often the highest-ROI automation a service business can turn on.
- MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue)
- Predictable subscription or contract revenue per month — the number recurring-service businesses grow and investors value.
N
- NPS (Net Promoter Score)
- A loyalty measure from one question: "How likely are you to recommend us, 0–10?" Scores 9–10 are promoters — the people to ask for reviews.
O
- Omnichannel Inbox
- One conversation stream combining calls, texts, emails, web chat, and social DMs, so nothing falls through a forgotten app.
- Open Rate
- The percentage of recipients who opened your message. Texts see ~98% open rates versus roughly 20% for email (Gartner).
- Opt-In / Opt-Out
- Permission management for marketing messages. US law (TCPA) requires consent before texting and an easy way to stop (reply STOP).
P
- Pipeline
- A visual board of every deal in progress, organized by stage — new lead, contacted, quoted, scheduled, done — so you always know what needs a push.
- Power Dialer
- A tool that calls through a contact list automatically, logging outcomes, so outbound calling hours go several times further.
R
- Reputation Management
- Systematically generating, monitoring, and responding to online reviews. 71% of consumers regularly read reviews before choosing a local business (BrightLocal 2025).
- Retargeting
- Showing ads specifically to people who already visited your site or engaged with you — warmer audiences, cheaper conversions.
- Review Gating
- Asking only happy customers for public reviews while diverting unhappy ones — against Google's policies and the FTC's rules. Ask everyone; route complaints to support fast.
S
- Sales Cycle
- How long it takes from first contact to closed deal. Shorter cycles compound: faster quotes and instant follow-up shrink it.
- SMS Marketing
- Marketing over text message — promotions, reminders, follow-ups. The highest-attention channel a small business has, and the most regulated (see TCPA, A2P 10DLC).
- Speed to Lead
- How fast you respond to a new inquiry. Leads contacted within 5 minutes are 21x more likely to qualify than after 30 minutes (MIT/InsideSales Lead Response Study).
T
- TCPA
- The Telephone Consumer Protection Act — the US law governing calls and texts to consumers. Requires prior consent for marketing texts, honors opt-outs, and carries per-message penalties.
- Text-to-Pay
- Sending an invoice by text with a payment link, so customers pay from their phone in seconds — typically collecting far faster than mailed or emailed invoices.
- Two-Way Texting
- Real conversations over SMS from your business number — not just outbound blasts — managed from a shared team inbox.
U
- Unified Calendar
- One calendar combining every team member's availability, so online booking never double-books a tech or a room.
W
- Webhook
- An instant automated message one system sends another when something happens — e.g., form submitted → CRM creates the contact in real time.
- White-Label
- Software a company rebrands and sells as its own — common in the agency world; the underlying platform is built by another vendor.
- Workflow Trigger
- The event that starts an automation: form filled, call missed, tag added, appointment booked, invoice paid.
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Every term on this page is something SMBcrm does out of the box — from missed-call text-back to workflow triggers.
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